Muscat: The importance of India to Oman Air's sales strategy was underlined recently, when the national carrier of the Sultanate held its business review for India and sales team orientation programme in Jaipur.

The event, held on April 2 and 3, was presided over by Oman Air chief commercial officer Abdulrazaq Al Raisi, supported by the airline's general manager worldwide sales and senior manager sales (Asia Pacific), and brought together Oman Air's country manager - India, district sales managers from Oman Air's 10 Indian stations and the management and sales team heads of its general sales agents in India.

"Oman Air's India Business Review was an excellent way of bringing together our sales staff and partners and agreeing a way forwards which will bring commercial success through planned and coordinated working," said Abdulrazaq Al Raisi.

"The focus of the business review and sales team orientation was to evaluate market conditions and develop smart solutions for optimising revenues on every flight from, or to, India. Oman Air's staff in India is already doing a very good job, but we must not relax in our efforts to ensure that Oman Air becomes the airline of choice within the country."

Pricing strategiesTo this end, Oman Air received a number of outstanding presentations during the sessions, which offered insights into some of the desired pricing strategies and selling processes which will help us to optimise performance, and these were complemented by a training session on dimensions of professional selling, conducted by Carew International.

"I would like to thank all those who participated, especially those team members who took a very active role and came up with prize-winning smart solutions, and I look forward to the ideas and inspiration that emerged from the event brought to fruition over the coming weeks and months."

India is a vital market for Oman Air, reflecting both the excellent political and economic relationship shared by the two countries and the fact that Indian nationals represent one of the largest expatriate communities residing in Oman.

In recent years, India has also become a major destination for Omani students and is attracting increasing numbers of medical tourists from Oman. At the same time, the numbers of tourists from India to Oman continues to grow, with the current level of around 12,000 Indian leisure visitors a year expected to triple by 2015.

Oman Air currently operates double daily flights from Muscat to four major Indian cities — Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad — and daily flights to Jaipur, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Cochin, Trivandrum and Calicut.